Article Summaries

BY KATIE QUINONEZ

The New York Times article titled "The Ballad of Big Mike" was written by Michael Lewis in 2006. It was adapted from the book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. The article was a bout a teenage left tackle, Michael Oher at Briarcrest Christian School in Mississippi. The was not a study by any means, but rather an in depth human interest piece. If anything, the significance of this article could be how the education system completely failed Oher and allowed him to be so behind. Also, the social context of the story should be noted. A wealthy white, religious, and conservative family takes in the homeless Oher and help him to get his high school degree and attend the University of Mississippi. This story is a human interest piece because it shows the goodness of people. I genuinely enjoyed reading this piece.

The article titled "Virtual Violence: Gender and Aggression in Video Game Advertisements" was published in Mass Communication & Society in 2004 and was written by Erica Scharrer. The study examined the portrayal of gender and violence in video game advertisements. The major hypotheses of this study were as follows:

H1:Male characters will outnumber female characters.
H2:Female characters will be more attractive than male characters.
H3: Female characters will be more sexualized than male characters.
H4:The number of male characters will be associated with the amount of violence.
H5: There will be more violent content than sexual content.

There were 10 hypotheses total, but I chose the ones that I felt were most relevant to the study. Previous researchers found that video game playing is the most popular form of entertainment for males between the ages of 12 and 25. One  researcher found in a content analysis of video games that only 15% of the games sampled had female heroes and 30% had no female characters at all.  Scharrer conducted a content analysis of 1,054 advertisements in large circulation video game magazines. Scharrer found that on average, 43% of the magazines' pages are devoted to ad content, with an average of 56 ads and 80 pages per issue. A total of 55.8% of the ads contained at least one act of violence. Male characters outnumbered female characters more than 3:1. The significance of this study is the fact that video games are increasing in popularity every year. An entire demographic, females, are being essentially neglected from this medium. We must consider how the portrayal of women in video games affects that particular age group. I agree with Scharrer in regard to the portrayal of females in video games, but I don't feel the violence in video games has that great of an impact on individuals. One could argue that the violence involved in sports such as football or hockey could have an impact on an individual and make them more violent.

The article titled "How Campus Media Cover Sports: The Gender-Equity Issue" was published in Mass Communication & Society in 2004 and was written by Suzanne Huffman, C.A. Tuggle and Dana Scott Rosengard. The study focused on the way media frame coverage of women's athletics. The major research questions of the study were as follows: What is the ratio in campus media of stories featuring women's sports to men's sports? What is the ratio in campus media of women interviewed about sports to men interviewed about sports? What is the ratio in campus media of women reporting about sports to men reporting about sports? What is the ratio in campus newscasts regarding coverage of male and female athletes in specific sports? Previous researchers found there was a "continuing failure sports news shows to adequately cover women's sports." In one instance, researchers found that the ratio in which men's sports were reported women's sports was six to one. One piece of information that particularly angered me was in the 2000 Summer Olympics, women made up 40% of the competitors. Men not only received more coverage but were also given more opportunities to be interviewed. This study involved a content analysis of the media of 66 different colleges. The study found that college newspaper devoted 72.7% of sports coverage to men and television devoted 81.5% to men despite the fact that females made up 41% of the college athletes. Male reporters in both print and broadcast greatly outnumbered women, as well. The significance of this study is the fact that women athletes depend on the media to represent the growing number of female athletes. According to this study, journalists are failing female athletes. While I agree with the study in that female athletes are greatly underrepresented, I think certain factors must be considered. There are not as many female sports as there are male sports and this is not the fault of the journalists but the fault of Title IX. Also, journalists must be aware of the season in which they are reporting sports and whether or not female sports are occurring at that time. Overall, college media does a better job of covering women's sports than mainstream media does due to the reduction of sports coverage by mainstream media. College journalists should seize this opportunity to report on female sports.

The article titled "Spreading Global Consumerism: Effect of Mass Media and Advertising on Consumerist Values in China" was published in Mass Communication & Society in 2004 and was written by Hye-Jin Paek and Zhongdang Pan. The study is about the effect that Western media content related to consumption has on consumerism in China. The major research question in this study is What are the roles of attitudes toward advertising in the relationship between exposure to advertisements via media and the acceptance of the consumerist values? Previous researchers have found that Chinese consumers are acquiring a more positive attitude toward advertisements, a "capitalist message," despite being a communist country. With this trend of consumerism, researchers show that China's consumers are developing not only consumerist values but also increased sophistication in consumption. The study was a an analysis of surveys distributed in 2000 by a marketing research agency in Beijing.

"Sports Model/Sports Mind: The Relationship Between Entertainment and Sports Media Exposure, Sports Participation, and Body Image Distortion in Division I Female Athletes" was written by Kimberly L. Bissell and published in Mass Communication & Society in 2004. This study investigated Division I female athletes' exposure to sports media and entertainment. Bissell looked for possible connections to body image distortion. This study had two primary hypotheses:

H1. Exposure to thin ideal television programming will be positively associated to higher scores on four disordered-eating subscales, independent of participation in sports and independent of interest in
body improvement television.
H2.  Exposure to televised sports will be positively associated with lower scores on four disordered-eating subscales, independent of participation in sports and interest in sports media.

Previous researchers found a positive link between body image distortion and girls and young women and television entertainment. The study involved both surveys of college student athletes and content analyses.
The study found that interest in body-improvement television and magazines was positively and significantly correlated to bulimia and drive for thinness, whereas frequency of participating in a competitive sport was positively and significantly correlated to the drive for thinness scale. The significance of this study is, again, the fact that the media has a great influence on viewers in numerous ways. The study showed the power of the media.